by Steve White
“Certainly, to the extent that the story can be pieced together. She was born in Richmond in or about 1839 as a slave to one John Van Lew. After his death, his daughter Elizabeth, who had strong anti-slavery opinions, freed the family’s slaves. Mary remained with the family as a servant until Elizabeth, recognizing her exceptional intelligence, sent her to Philadelphia to be educated in the Quaker School for Negroes. It turned out she also had a photographic memory. She returned to Richmond just before the Civil War began, to marry a free black man and resume working in the Van Lew household.
“Early in the war Elizabeth Van Lew, who was already considered eccentric because of her anti-slavery and anti-secession views, became positively unpopular with her neighbors by taking food, medicine and other items to the Union officers being held in Richmond’s notorious Libby Prison. She would have been even more unpopular had they known that she was helping some of those prisoners escape, and providing safe houses. She also got information from them about Confederate dispositions and smuggled it out of Richmond to the Union high command via her household staff of freed slaves, written in a code she had devised and hidden in things like shoe soles and hollow eggs.”
Aiken looked perplexed. “Wasn’t she sort of bringing suspicion on herself by openly being a Union sympathizer? I would have thought she would have wrapped a Confederate flag around herself and sung ‘Dixie’ at the top of her lungs.”
“That would have been suspicious in itself, since her views were already well known. Instead, she turned her reputation for eccentricity to her advantage. She made sure she wasn’t taken seriously by talking and humming to herself and generally acting demented at every opportunity, so much so that she came to be known as ‘Crazy Bet.’”
“Hiding in plain sight,” said Mondrago approvingly. “Still, surely the Confederates must have suspected that something was going on.” The naiveté of earlier eras in matters of counterintelligence was a never-ending source of wonder to him. He had declared himself unsurprised when Dabney had told them that Antietam (or Sharpsburg, as the Confederates called it), one of the most decisive battles of the war, had been lost because secret orders had been found in a field along with the cigars they had been used to wrap.
“Oh, yes. Her home was searched repeatedly. But they never found anything incriminating. She kept all her materials, including a detailed journal of her activities, buried in a hole in her backyard.”
“A hole in her backyard,” Mondrago repeated with a dazed headshake.
“Eventually Elizabeth Van Lew was running a spy ring that included clerks in Confederate government departments and a high-ranking officer at Libby Prison. And her lines of communication with General Grant had become so routine that she was sending him a daily copy of the Richmond newspaper! But her greatest coup was inserting her former slave Mary Bowser into the ‘Confederate White House.’ Through a friend, she had Bowser brought in as an illiterate, somewhat dim-witted servant named Ellen Bond—”
(“Another alias!” Aiken groaned.)
“—to help Jefferson Davis’ wife Varina with social functions. Soon she was taken on full-time. You must understand that servants were effectively invisible, and were assumed to be unable to read and write, or to understand anything beyond simple commands. So there was no attempt to prevent her from reading the state papers lying around Davis’ office, and listening in on meetings and conversations.”
Mondrago gave an even more incredulous headshake-and-sigh.
“With her phenomenal memory, Bowser was able to retain information verbatim, and being educated could write it down. She then passed it on to another of Elizabeth Van Lew’s spies, a baker named Thomas McNiven who made regular deliveries to the Davis household. Eventually, it became obvious that there was a huge leak in the Confederate White House, and McNiven was caught. It was only then that Bowser began to come under suspicion. She was aware that her position had become precarious, and after unsuccessfully attempting to burn the Confederate White House down she fled in January, 1865.”
“The month after we’re due to arrive,” Jason nodded. “Where did she go after that, Dr. Dabney?”
“I cannot say. As I mentioned, both she and the Union authorities did their best to obscure the facts about her. After the war, she simply vanishes from history. There are indications that she moved north, which certainly would have been prudent. But no one knows when or where she died.”
Nesbit spoke up. “Nowhere in what you’ve told us is there anything about any connection between Mary Bowser and some secret organization of African-Americans in that period.”
“No, nor is any such organization known to history. I was quite taken by surprise when we of Inspector Da Cunha’s expedition learned, if only in vague terms, of its existence.”
“Sounds almost like the kind of things the Transhumanists are trying to fill the ‘blank spaces’ of human history with,” Logan remarked.
“Except that, according to Rutherford, Pauline’s impression was that they were opposed to the Transhumanists.” Jason gave a dismissive gesture. “There’s no point in speculating on that until we have some hard data. For now, let’s concentrate on completing our orientation.”
That orientation, and the rest of their preparation, was not as time-consuming as it would have been for earlier epochs, such as those Jason had recently visited. One example was the elimination from their bodies of forcibly-evolved microorganisms to which people before the twentieth and early twenty-first-century era of reckless antibiotics overuse had no immunity. It wasn’t as much of a problem as it had been when he had gone back into the Bronze and Iron Ages of ancient Greece. Since those eras, the microorganisms had had additional thousands of years of natural evolution. And as always, the subcutaneous implantation of their TRDs under the insides of their upper left arms was merely routine.
But the orientation involved, among other things, the acquisition of mid-nineteenth-century American English—and, specifically, its Southern variant—by Nesbit, Logan and Aiken. They did so by direct neural induction, as Jason, Mondrago and Dabney already had. It was another area in which the Temporal Regulatory Authority had successfully argued for an exemption from the Human Integrity Act on the basis of sheer practicality. In this case, the language in question was sufficiently similar to twenty-fourth century Standard International English as almost to constitute a different dialect of the same tongue. This simplified the process, but was not altogether a good thing. They would have to constantly be careful not to let familiarity cause any of their own century’s neologisms and loan-words to slip into their speech.
Of course the imposition of a language directly on the speech centers of the brain did not magically confer the ability to speak it like a native of the locality. Thus time travelers, wherever they happened to be, always claimed to be from somewhere else, so oddities and eccentricities of pronunciation were only to be expected. Fortunately, in this case they had a perfect opening, as Dabney explained to them.
“At the time we will be arriving, there were… .” He trailed to a halt at the realization of the mixed tenses.
“Everyone has problems like that when discussing time travel,” Jason assured him.
“Thank you. At any rate, there were units from the Deep South in Lee’s army of Northern Virginia—specifically, in the cavalry.” He manipulated controls, and an organization chart appeared on the briefing room’s viewscreen.
“As you can see, the Cavalry Corps, under the command of Major General Wade Hampton, consisted of three divisions, one of which was commanded by Brigadier General Wade Butler. Butler had two brigades, of which the one we are concerned with was led by Brigadier General Pierce Young.”
Mondrago studied the chart. “I don’t see any numerical designations for these units.”
“They had none; they were referred to as ‘Hampton’s Corps’ and ‘Butler’s Division’ and ‘Young’s Brigade,’” explained Dabney, eliciting a disapproving headshake from Mondrago. “But to continue, Yo
ung had four regiments, one of which was called the Jeff Davis Legion.” A cursor flashed, indicating a box on the screen. “The men of its ten companies were drawn from the states of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.”
Dabney’s listeners nodded. In the course of their orientation they had absorbed enough of the political geography of the old United States of America to follow him. In fact, Jason was already fairly familiar with it from previous expeditions. “None from Louisiana?” he inquired. “When Alexandre and I were in this milieu before, we were prepared to claim to be from there. As it turned out, we never needed to. We were only there for a bare three days. And in the middle of the Confederacy’s final collapse, people had other things on their minds besides making searching inquiries as to our origin.”
“That was just as well, for in fact there were no Louisiana units in the Army of Northern Virginia at that time; they were all with the Army of the Trans-Mississippi.”
“Too bad. Alexandre and I both have the Mediterranean kind of looks that the Virginians of that era would have automatically associated with French or Spanish Creoles, who incidentally had a very different way of speaking.”
“It happens I can accommodate you,” said Dabney with a smile. “Of the three Mississippi companies in the Jeff Davis Legion, two were from Chickasaw County and Kemper County, which were in the northeasterly parts of the state, well away from the Gulf coast. But the third company, known as ‘The Natchez Cavalry,’ drew its men from Adams County, on the lower Mississippi River around the town of Natchez—hence the name—where there was a significant Creole element.”
“So,” said Mondrago, “you’re telling me that these people not only had regiments associated with particular states, but that on the company level they were sometimes associated with a particular county?” He turned to Jason. “This is starting to remind me of the time we were in fifth century B.C. Athens. Remember the way the army was organized around the ten tribes that the citizenry was divided into?”
“Yes,” Jason nodded. “Very beneficial from the standpoint of unit solidarity, but damned inconvenient for us. These men all knew each other, and each other’s relatives. We’ll have to be very careful not to fall in with the ‘Natchez Cavalry’ we’re claiming to be a part of.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Dabney asserted. “The Army of Northern Virginia, as of our arrival date in December, 1864, was pretty much tied down in the defense of Petersburg, to the southeast of Richmond.” The organization chart vanished, replaced by a map. “This included the cavalry, which was used in a variety of roles—patrols, skirmishing, scouting, reconnaissance, and dispatch duty, among others.”
“But not, er, charges against the enemy?” Nesbit ventured, romantic images visibly fading in his eyes.
Dabney shot him an irritated look but replied with scrupulous patience. “No. Half a century earlier, Napoleon’s heavy shock cavalry had ridden down unshaken infantry a few times—as, for example, at Eylau against the Russians when a snowstorm had soaked their gunpowder—although they failed abysmally at Waterloo. But by the period we are discussing, it was no longer practical. The reasons will become apparent when we get into an in-depth discussion of the revolution in firearms that had occurred since Napoleon’s time. At the moment, the point is that we should not encounter our alleged comrades of the ‘Natchez Cavalry’ as long as we avoid the Petersburg battlefront, as I sincerely hope we do.” Dabney gave a rather nervous laugh. Academic curiosity had its limits, Jason decided.
CHAPTER FIVE
Their transformation into reasonable facsimiles of Confederate cavalrymen came in several stages.
Names were the easiest. Logan, Aiken, Nesbit and Dabney (whose first name wouldn’t seem eccentric in one hailing from the Spanish-influenced Gulf coast) could keep their own. Mondrago had done the same on his brief previous jaunt to 1865, while Jason had adopted the surname “Landrieu” along with the rank of captain, and they would do the same this time. It would avoid the need for awkward explanations if anyone saw them in both of their versions.
Uniforms were almost equally simple, for the Authority’s workshops had vast experience in turning out period clothing as well as subtle techniques for giving it a well-worn look. The last part was especially important, for they would be posing as soldiers in the last year of a grueling four-year war—soldiers on the losing side, whose supply facilities had always been chronically inadequate. In fact Jason, as an officer, and Mondrago, as a sergeant, were the only ones who would have something resembling the regulation uniforms of gray with yellow cavalry facings. Jason’s sleeves sported the Confederate officer’s distinctive, elaborate gold braid “Austrian knot” (artfully tarnished and faded), while Mondrago’s had yellow chevrons. The others would wear the light “butternut” brownish-gray shade that was the closest most of the South’s facilities could come to the regulation “cadet gray.” For headgear they all had the “stag hat” that the Confederate cavalry always preferred to the regulation kepi. All the uniforms were of heavy cotton denim. Likewise of cotton were their undergarments, for whose heaviness they would be grateful on their arrival in December. Their boots were as high-quality as they could be made without arousing suspicion in a famously footgear-short army.
As cavalrymen, they would of course be expected to be able to ride horses. Temporal Service personnel learned equestrianism as part of their training, and Dabney proved to be their best rider—he had long done it for recreation, as well as having gone through an introduction to it as part of the course in low-tech survival that the Authority required all would-be time travelers to pass. But that latter course was Nesbit’s only exposure to it, and Jason could only hope he would be able to keep up.
But while they could all ride, they would have no horses to do it with. The energy expenditure necessary for temporal displacement, always staggering (at least using the Authority’s technology), was a function of two factors: the length of time separating the target date from the present, and the total mass being displaced. For a displacement of five hundred and sixteen years, the total combined mass of six men yielded a reasonable energy cost. But six horses complete with tack were out of the question—Rutherford had experienced heart palpitations at the mere thought. They would have to arrive on foot and obtain mounts locally, by hook or crook. It oughtn’t to be necessary to resort to the “crook” part, for Jason was bringing a supply of gold dollars which should serve to purchase practically anything in an economy brought to its knees as much by the hyperinflation of the Confederacy’s paper currency as by the Union blockade. Of course, no amount of money could buy what wasn’t available to be bought, and Jason doubted they would get prime specimens of horseflesh—which, in Nesbit’s case at least, might be just as well. And it would provide them with a cover story to explain their presence in Richmond: they would be there to obtain mounts for their company, the “Natchez Cavalry.”
They would, however, carry their own weapons, manufactured to the Authority’s uncompromising standard of authenticity. For familiarization with these, they went to the armory, where Dabney, very much in his element, began with general background.
“The American Civil War was fought in the midst of a revolution in firearms. The French historian Jean Colin once said, referring to the advent of gunpowder in China around the year 900, ‘More than a thousand years were needed before the invention of gunpowder really transformed war.’ That’s an extreme position, but there’s a grain of truth in it. Up to a couple of decades before our arrival date, the infantry were armed with a muzzle-loading smoothbore musket whose flintlock ignition missed fire one in six times and which was reasonably accurate only out to forty yards.”
“We had some experience with primitive slow-loading, single-shot firearms when we were in the seventeenth-century Caribbean,” Jason affirmed. “Edged weapons still played a big role.”
“Yes. Under such circumstances, a single foot soldier in the open was pretty much at the mercy of a horseman. So the infantry were mas
sed in dense formations designed to maximize volume of essentially unaimed fire, followed by a bayonet charge.”
Mondrago, who often surprised Jason with his knowledge of military history, spoke up. “Wasn’t there a general of the British Indian army who, when he was told the ammunition was running out, said, ‘Thank God! I’ll be at ’em with the bayonet!’”
Dabney nodded. “General Gough, at Sobraon during the First Sikh War—a battle which, incidentally, he won. But that was in the 1840s, just as the great change was beginning.” He reached behind him to a shelf holding a variety of small arms and held up a longarm. “The British Pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musket, widely used in the American Civil War alongside the very similar American Springfield. It’s still a single-shot muzzle-loader, and at first glance it looks much like the good old flintlock musket. But there’s a world of difference. In the first place, instead of a flintlock it uses percussion ignition: the hammer strikes a copper cap full of fulminates fitted over a little steel nipple, so it was a near-certainty that it would actually fire when you squeezed the trigger.
“But the most important change was reflected in the name rifled musket. Unlike the old smoothbores, it has spiral grooves along the inside of the barrel. This puts a spin on the projectile and give it far greater range and accuracy.”
Logan looked perplexed. “Then why hadn’t they rifled the barrels of the old flintlocks?”
“They sometimes did, for hunting weapons like the ‘Kentucky long rifle.’ But it wasn’t practical for the military because it was even slower-loading than the smoothbores; it took time to ram a round lead ball down a rifled barrel from the muzzle if the ball was large enough to grip the rifling. What brought about the revolution was this.” Dabney picked up an object so small that they had to lean forward to see it. “It’s a French invention called the Minié ball.”